Reflection on Social Media Case 10: Miracle Mattress Twin Tower Sale

Just a word of advice. Probably don't base your commercials off of significant terrorist events that killed hundreds of American people, especially if you're going to make it lighthearted. This commercial was not well thought out. There is never going to be an okay time to use significant trauma in a comedic way to sell your product. These events should be honored because of the people who were affected by them. If I had family members who were killed or injured in 9/11 and I saw this commercial, I would be very upset. This commercial was just plain bad taste, but I'm sure when they were coming up with ideas they didn't fully consider the impacts it would have. Many times, especially since it was a local business, marketing ideas are bounced off only a few people. It's possible that group think occurred and even if people did disagree with the idea, they didn't speak up. For me, the sale itself is distasteful, but it didn't really impact me until the very end when they made the mattresses fall over and adding "We will never forget." It seemed very insensitive and almost mocking. It's unfortunate that the store closed down completely after this commercial and I wonder what would have happened if they were more active in regaining trust after the incident. They did apologize after they noticed that people were not receiving it well, but that was not well received. I think if they did much more it would have been very destructive. They made the best decision to close down the store and get out while they could. This commercial is important to note because social media has completely changed advertising. If this happened before Facebook and sharing, then it wouldn't have had such an immediate effect. Social media created a space where people could comment about the commercial and it reached far outside of Texas. When we're doing advertising we must be aware of our demographics and neighboring audiences and stay in line with certain boundaries.

Comments

  1. UnknownApril 4, 2018 at 9:52 AM

    Haha pretty good advice! I definitely agree this commercial was not thought out at all. I wonder how many companies would still be successful if we didn't have social media to voice bad reviews. At the same time, we wouldn't have a lot of the companies that exist now if not for social media.

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownApril 4, 2018 at 3:58 PM

    Good post!

    ReplyDelete
  3. UnknownApril 5, 2018 at 10:10 PM

    Some of the best advice ever said! haha honestly baffling, I still can't believe that this actually happened. Great post!

    ReplyDelete

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